No, he doesn't have the chance to be better than Kaz, but he's going to be a really solid starter for a lot of years. His fastball is only average, as it sits between 88-92 MPH (he can pump it up to as high as 95), but his changeup is flat out dominant (top 5 in baseball, IMHO) and his curve has plus potential as well.

He's had a problem with the HR ball so far this season, but batters are only hitting .208 against him and he has the potential to be a pretty good ground ball pitcher... he pounds the bottom half with his changeup and fastball. I like him a lot.

He does have a fantastic change-up but needs to throw his breaking ball with more confidence before I would have him as a regular starter. Also has a tendency to tire rather badly after 5-6 innings. Obviously didn't happen today though.

When you're right no one remembers, when you're wrong no one forgets - NZF

For what it's worth, Shandler and Co. have been on this guy as a potential breakout candidate. The underlying numbers that the stats guys use were much more impressive than his ERA/WHIP from last year showed. If you look at his game logs from this year you'll notice that before today he pitched quite well until the middle innings when he seemed to run out of gas and the gopher ball became a problem. He certainly doesn't give up many free passes which is nice. Might be comparable to Dave Bush at this point(?) Plays in the wrong division and has a lousy bullpen obviously. But I'm with killa3312, I like him a lot.

"Trying to hit him was like trying to drink coffee with a fork." - Willie Stargell on Sandy Koufax